Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense

by Linda Landrigan

  The first inkling André DuBois had that his niece and her husband intended to rob him was when he found his file box of recipe cards missing from his kitchen shelf.

  Before, he had vaguely suspected that they might try to borrow money from him to help finance a gourmet restaurant in Paris. However, when he returned from his expedition to the village grocer and saw that his recipe file was gone—that’s when he first seriously entertained the idea that they meant to steal his greatest treasure—and even, if it should prove necessary in the end, to kill him.

  André DuBois was a slender, shaggy-browed man of middle height but well past middle age, and now almost bald. His baldness, he often explained jokingly, was the result of wearing his hat indoors for so many years. His chef’s cap, he meant. For he had been a world-famous chef before he withdrew from Paris to spend his declining years growing flowers and garden vegetables on the outskirts of the Italian village of Lucignano.

  As he stared at the empty place on the kitchen shelf where his box of recipe cards had been, his emotions were varied, to say the least. Surprise was his first reaction. Surprise was rapidly followed by disbelief, which, in turn, gave way to incipient anger. Finally, with greater impact than any of these, he was struck by pity and shame for his niece, Yvonne, the only relative he had left in the world, the daughter of his dead brother, and now married to the man Gustav. Or was she married to him? Perhaps not, in these days of the sexual revolution; but here she was, at all events, in Lucignano with Gustav.

  They had arrived from Arezzo driving a rented car in which they had been taking, they said, a leisurely trip about Italy, visiting Venice, Milan, Bologna, Florence, and Rome. Since Arezzo was so very close to Lucignano, Yvonne explained, they had decided on impulse to seek out her Uncle André, whom she had not seen for thirteen years, introduce him to her husband, Gustav, and thus strengthen, she hoped, the fragile thread of family relationship that had, alas, worn thin over the years for both of them.

  André DuBois had made them welcome, of course. He was delighted to see his niece again, glad to meet her husband, especially pleased to have their company for a time in his retirement retreat, since he was a lonely man at best.

  Yvonne had grown into a vivacious, voluptuous woman from the leggy youngster he remembered. Her hazel eyes and blonde hair (if it were genuinely blonde, which he doubted) gave her the patrician look of a northern Italian—a far cry indeed from the dark Latin mien of a Frenchwoman from Provence, which she really was. When she spoke, André noted with approval, her voice was soft and provocative, as a woman’s voice should be.

  As for the husband, Gustav, he was another kettle of fish entirely. A great lout of a man, bearlike and shambling, speaking with a rough Scandinavian accent that went with his name, Gustav would never win any prizes either for good looks or good manners, André decided indulgently. He felt inclined to indulgence as he looked at his handsome niece with avuncular understanding. If Gustav were Yvonne’s choice, Gustav was good enough for André, too. Although—and André noticed this the moment they met—Gustav’s small unblinking eyes, the color of muddy water, were set rather too close together, and the man carried with him a strong odor of perspiration.

  André insisted that they stay with him for a while, eagerly offering them his own bedroom, the only one the ancient farmhouse contained. He would sleep on the sofa on the small porch where he usually ate his meals in nice weather.

  Yvonne and Gustav accepted his invitation with alacrity, transferred their cheap suitcases from the rented car to André’s bedroom at once, and proceeded to make themselves at home.

  “Uncle André,” said Yvonne, “it is so nice to see you again after all these years. And in Italy, of all places! It is so quiet here, so unspoiled and fresh, so different from smelly old France!”

  “And I’m glad to see you, Yvonne,” André responded warmly, “and to meet your husband, too.” He was somewhat at a loss as to what to say to Gustav. “I find this place very relaxing indeed after so many years in your ‘smelly old France,’ as you call it.” He smiled at her, his bushy eyebrows tilting upward at their outer edges in a very droll manner.

  Gustav was looking about him. The room in which they sat was untidy and cluttered, a typical farmer’s retreat. Its most remarkable feature was a source of metal plaques, framed certificates, and engraved medallions that almost entirely covered the wall space of the cramped room. Gustav waved a hand at them and asked, “What are all those things?”

  Before André could reply, Yvonne said with a hint of laughter in her soft voice, “Gustav! Read them! They are awards for cooking, won by Uncle André from all the gourmet societies of the world!”

  Gustav jumped up from his chair for a closer look at the awards. “You were a chef?” he rumbled at André. “A chef?” He paused deliberately, then said, “Not Le Grand André? Of Chez Marie Antoinette in Paris? That André?”

  Somehow Gustav didn’t sound as surprised as his words suggested. Nevertheless, André nodded and replied modestly, “That André, yes. But no longer. Now I am only a farmer, Gustav, as you see. A decrepit raiser of flowers and bland vegetables.”

  Yvonne laughed aloud. “You see, Gustav,” she crowed, “I’ve been saving Uncle André as a surprise for you! The greatest chef of the century is also our own dear Uncle André!”

  Gustav gave a grimace that might have been meant for a smile. “Surprise, indeed!” he said, shaking his massive head. “Le Grand André! In my own family!”

  Yvonne jumped up, seized Gustav’s hand, and danced around in a circle. To André, Gustav’s heavy, awkward movements seemed more than ever like those of an ill-trained bear.

  After a few turns, Yvonne dropped her husband’s hand, turned to André, and cried, “You see, Uncle, the great joke is that Gustav is a chef, also! Can you believe it? Two chefs in the same family!” In her ebullience, she took hold of André’s arms and would have danced him around, too, except that he protested, with a laugh, “Yvonne, no. I am too old for these childish tricks.”

  He glanced at Gustav’s face, again expressionless around his close-set eyes, and said, “Where do you work, Gustav? Is your restaurant in Paris? Do I know it?”

  “At present,” Gustav said, “I am unemployed.”

  “Oh, bad luck. Where was your last job?”

  “Le Logis du Loup Sauvage. In Aix.”

  “A fine restaurant. Famous in my own youth, if memory serves, for its soufflé d’escargots. And they let you go?” Small wonder, André mused. How could they expect food prepared by this great clod to be anything but unsavory, heavy, indigestible; as totally lacking in subtlety and balance as the chef himself? Aloud, he said, “Such are the hazards of our profession, Gustav. But not fatal, thankfully. Let us hope your unemployment will be only temporary, eh? Have you anything in view?”

  Yvonne answered with a rush. “Oh, yes, Uncle! We have applied at all the good restaurants along the Côte d’Azur. And now in Italy, too. That is the true purpose of our trip, you see. Gustav has had interviews at La Taverna Fenice, Martini, Savini, Pappagallo, Oliviero, Sabatini, Alfredo, and Hostaria dell’Orso.”

  “First-class kitchens, every one,” André said.

  “And failing a job at any of these,” Yvonne rushed on, “we thought maybe we could find somebody to back us in establishing a restaurant of our own somewhere.” She gave André a meaningful look.

  Knowing the answer beforehand, André asked, “What were the results of your interviews, Gustav?”

  “Uniformly negative,” grumbled Gustav with an injured expression. He looked at Yvonne, a quick, furtive, sliding glance that merely flicked her for an instant before his small eyes turned back to André. “I need a specialty, of course,” he said. “They all told me that.”

  To get rid of you, probably, André thought. Aloud he said, “That is understandable, Gustav. A chef with a good specialty will draw customers more speedily to a restaurant than topless waitresses, even.” André tilted his eyebrows again.


  “True,” Gustav said, “as you should know better than anyone, Uncle, since your own reputation was so firmly founded on your famous specialty. Even in Copenhagen, where I received my training, the name of your Potage François Premier was better known among the apprentice cooks than that of Queen Elizabeth the Second.”

  “Thank you,” André murmured, pleased despite himself at this heavy-handed compliment. “It was just a soup, after all.”

  “Just a soup!” Yvonne exclaimed. “You insult your genius, Uncle André! Potage François Premier was pure nectar! And only you in all the world knew how to make it. My father told me about it many times, boasting of your skill. And finally, when I was fifteen, he brought me to Paris and took me to Chez Marie Antoinette for dinner and let me taste your divine soup for myself! Do you remember?”

  “I remember. You were a charming child.”

  “Eating that soup of yours was almost like falling in love, Uncle, did you know that? The same sudden disregard for everything else in the world except your beloved; the same headlong plunge into a willing slavery to your emotions.” She looked meltingly at her husband. “Oh, Gustav,” she said. Her lips parted slightly in remembered ecstasy. “There was never anything like Uncle André’s Potage François Premier!”

  Gustav said, “I believe you, Yvonne. Although I have never had the pleasure of tasting Uncle André’s soup, every chef who ever boiled an egg knows it was superb.”

  André considered this statement rather fulsome, but took it in good part. He began to feel faint stirrings of sympathy for poor unemployed Gustav. He said, on a sudden impulse, “I will tell you something about Potage François Premier. I have never told this to anyone before, not even your father, Yvonne, although he was my dear brother. I did not create that great soup of mine. I inherited the recipe and claimed the discovery for my own.”

  They stared at him, shocked. “You inherited the recipe? From whom, is one allowed to ask?” inquired Gustav, a new shine in his unblinking eyes.

  “From my father, who, in turn, inherited the recipe from his father. The recipe has passed in total secrecy from father to oldest son in our family for almost five hundred years now … ever since the first André DuBois created the soup for Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence. He called it Zuppa Il Magnifico in the Duke’s honor.”

  André found himself enjoying this confession of a long-guarded secret. He warmed to his subject. “So you see,” he said, smiling with his eyebrows, “the original Potage François Premier was not French at all. It was an Italian soup, created by an Italian chef, for an Italian duke!”

  Yvonne twisted a strand of her long hair about her finger. “An Italian chef named André DuBois?” She laughed.

  “Andrea dei Boschi was his name, Yvonne. He Frenchified it when he emigrated to France.”

  “Emigrated to France? Why?” Gustav asked. “Was he out of work, like me?” His grimace appeared again.

  “Not likely … the greatest chef of his era. But Leonardo da Vinci tasted his Zuppa Il Magnifico at a Medici banquet and was so entranced at the exquisite balance of its taste factors that when he went to work for the Sforza family in Milan, he told the Duke Moro about it, and Moro offered Andrea dei Boschi a princely salary to come to Milan and be the ducal chef. Andrea yielded. And later, when Leonardo went to France to live, at the invitation of its new king, Francis the First, history repeated itself. Leonardo sang the praises of Zuppa Il Magnifico to King Francis, and Andrea dei Boschi was inveigled into coming to France as the king’s chef. That is when Zuppa Il Magnifico became Potage François Premier, you see. And since Andrea was a compulsive gambler who invariably lost, his recipe for the soup was the only thing of value he had to leave to his son.”

  “Have all the oldest sons of our family been famous chefs ever since then, Uncle?” Yvonne asked, smiling.

  “None,” André answered. “None. Until me.”

  “Why not?” Gustav asked. “With a specialty like Potage François Premier, any dolt could become a famous chef.”

  André said evenly, “Very few members of our family have been dolts, Gustav. But I suppose most of my ancestors lacked the patience to capitalize on the recipe. It takes five days to make the soup.”

  Gustav was impressed at last. “Five days!” he echoed. “No wonder it made you famous!” He paused and his eyes flicked again to Yvonne briefly. “May I ask you something, Uncle, without impertinence?”

  “Ask,” said André, knowing already what was coming.

  “What was your salary at Chez Marie Antoinette?”

  “Three hundred thousand francs.”

  Gustav shook his bearlike head as though in pain. “And all because of a single soup recipe!”

  “Not so,” André said with dignity. “The cuisine at Chez Marie was not composed solely of a single soup, may I point out.” He nodded at the awards on the walls around him. “As these citations testify, I was not known as a distinguished chef for my soup alone.”

  “Of course not,” Yvonne said hastily.

  Trying to keep the eagerness from his voice, Gustav asked, “What will become of your recipe now? You have neither a son nor a daughter. Only a niece. Does Yvonne inherit this recipe now?”

  André shook his head. “I am sorry, Yvonne, but no. In my will, I have left the recipe to the Société Gastronomique Internationale as a historical treasure to be published and enjoyed by every amateur cook who wants it after my death. And I have sworn that no one shall have it until I die.” He shrugged, a completely Gallic shrug, although by his own admission his blood was at least fractionally Italian. In implied apology he went on, “I did not know, of course, that my niece would marry a chef when I made these arrangements.”

  “You know it now,” Gustav said gravely. “Can you not reconsider?”

  “My word is given,” André said simply.

  “With the recipe for Potage François Premier,” Gustav pleaded urgently, “any restaurant of haute cuisine in France would happily employ me as master chef, from La Tour d’Argent to La Bonne Auberge.”

  “I am sorry,” André repeated. “It is impossible.”

  They left it then, but André slept uneasily that night on his sofa. Once, when he awoke during the night, he heard the murmur of voices from his bedroom.

  At breakfast, he treated his guests to Omelet Raspail, served with thick unsweetened coffee and wafer-thin leaves of toasted bread. Omelet Raspail had been almost as famous at Chez Marie Antoinette as Potage François Premier. Gustav ate his portion with a kind of reluctant awe, smacking his thick lips in appreciation.

  André said, “Gustav, my dear boy, I have been thinking. You say you badly need a specialty to win employment. I can suggest a dozen for you.” He rose from the breakfast table, went to the kitchen and lifted his metal file box of recipes from the shelf over the sink. “How would you like to offer prospective employers Mousse de Mélongeène Rousseau as your specialty?”

  “It is commonplace,” Gustav said ungraciously. “Ten thousand chefs can make it.”

  “Only four can make it right,” murmured André, but selected another card from his file. “What about Paté de Barbotine Enceinte? That would be unique with you and draw discriminating diners like flies. Chef Henri Courbet, who invented it, has been dead for forty years, and only two other chefs besides myself have ever been able to duplicate it. I have the recipe here in the file.”

  Gustav shook his head decidedly, “No good, Uncle. With this rage for slimming, paté is passé.”

  André sighed. “Eh bien, I can teach you how to prepare saddle of veal with a shallot sauce so daring and imaginative that it is irresistibly challenging to the eater. It could make your name famous in six months.”

  “No,” Gustav said positively. “These are specialties that have seen their day, Uncle. Any chef worthy of the name can at least make a stab at preparing them, including myself.” He hesitated and then came out with it baldly. “Teach me to make Potage François Premier and I shall conquer the world!” He d
id not seem to realize how silly such rodomontade sounded. “Let me but see your recipe card for Potage François Premier, and Yvonne and I will be in your debt forever!”

  André snapped shut his box of recipe cards. “I am sorry,” he said a third time, “that is impossible. There is no card in this file for my soup. The only record of that recipe, aside from the will in my avocat’s hands, is here,” and he tapped his forehead. Then he replaced the recipe file on the kitchen shelf and departed rather abruptly on a shopping trip to the village, intent on laying in supplies for the entertainment of his guests.

  When he returned, he stepped into his kitchen for a glass of water. The summer sun was extremely hot, and he had walked four miles in its embrace. It was then that he saw his recipe file was missing.

  Curiously, besides anger, he felt an inclination to weep. Perhaps because he was growing old and emotional? Or because it saddened him to find his niece involved with a lazy, parasitical, graceless clown like Gustav, who had the nerve to call himself a chef? No matter. Anger soon overcame dolor, and he went out quietly into the summer sunshine again and began a cautious reconnaissance of his property.

  As expected, he soon located his two guests. They were sprawled at ease under a linden tree at the far end of his flower garden. He stood unnoticed behind a head-high stack of cut logs and regarded them.

  Gustav had André’s recipe box open upon his lap and was leafing through it carefully, giving each card a concentrated glare from his muddy-water eyes. André heard him say to Yvonne, who was leaning against the bole of the tree, facing her husband, “It’s got to be in this file someplace, Yvonne. It’s got to be! All his other recipes are here—hundreds of them.”

  Yvonne laughed with flat lack of merriment. “Didn’t you believe him, darling, when he handed us all that blague about the Société Gastronomique Internationale?”